


Guilt and Other Emotions

by startrekto221B



Series: What John Would Have Wanted [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, John is in exile, M/M, Sherlock falls in love with Mary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 19:38:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3393818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startrekto221B/pseuds/startrekto221B
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Second Part]<br/>Series 3 AU where John shoots Magnussen instead of Sherlock. He avoids a public trial when Mycroft covers it up and sends him into exile. John kisses Sherlock before he gets on the plane. And both Sherlock and Mary have to cope with his perhaps indefinite absence. Finding comfort in the most unexpected way imaginable…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guilt and Other Emotions

_John should be here._ Sherlock thinks it every time he hears Emily crying in the night and runs to comfort her. He and Mary trade off for it. He gets Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. Which is why on this rainy Tuesday night, standing next to the crib in the living room, he finds himself talking to a six week old baby.

There’s no logic behind it. He knows she can’t understand it. But as he’s been doing this week after week he’s found that the sound of his voice soothes her and she eventually sinks back to sleep. So he talks about John. The father she never knew. Like a kind of lullaby. All the different, useless facts about him he’s stored in his mind. Sometimes less useless things that he’d just like her to know.

“He was my best friend,”

“He was a war hero,”

“He didn’t abandon you, he was trying to protect us, he loved you, so, so much,”

He has a feeling that Mary tells Emily about John too. But he doesn’t ask. It’s a nice thing they have here. And some things don’t need saying.

***

He feels it. The guilt. It’s the first emotion to truly register after the pain of losing John. After the brief, shining moments of happiness given to him by Mary and Emily.

He feels it when Emily first learns to crawl. When she crawls towards him and then back towards Mary. Then back towards him. This should be John. This is John’s life. John’s daughter. John’s wife. But he says nothing.

He feels it when he points to pictures of John in old photo albums, “That’s your dad, can you say dad?” he takes her pudgy finger and points it to John’s face. But when she says “Da!” happily, she doesn’t look at the picture Sherlock has been showing her every day, but at Sherlock.

He feels it when he takes her out in the stroller and everyone always assumes.

“What a beautiful daughter you have,”

“Oh she’s so cute, you’re so lucky,”

No, he wants to tell them. John should have been so lucky.

It’s even worse on the occasions when Mary comes with them. When they take Emily out to see the city. To see the city her real father loved. When they sit on a park bench together. Sherlock sees how other people must see them. The tall dark haired man. The petite blonde woman and the chubby blonde child. The perfect family of three.

Truth be told. This family stuff doesn’t come naturally to him. He prefers his experiments. His science. Solving crimes. But it’s grown on him gradually. He loves Emily, loves that sometimes when he looks at her he can see John. John, his John, who gave up everything so that she could be safe. He loves her because she is John’s. He knows that. But when he looks at her he also sees Mary. And despite his best efforts not to, he loves that part of her too.

Sure, the birth certificate says ‘Watson-Holmes’, but that is only because Sherlock is the godfather. He is not Mary’s husband. They are simply friends. But Sherlock knows he’s overstepped. This isn’t fair to John. It really isn’t. So he considers taking a step back.

“John would have wanted you to be a part of Emily’s life Sherlock,” Mary says one day over breakfast, “I can see that look in your eyes, you don’t have to feel that way,”

“Who’s to say what John would have wanted,” Sherlock says, “It’s been a year, but he wouldn’t have wanted it quite like this,”

“Quite like what?” Mary asked, “Sherlock we’re not together,”

“People talk,” Sherlock said quietly.

“They do little else,” she shrugged, “I loved him, Sherlock. So did you. And you love Emily. That’s all there is to it.”

She seems confident when she says it, but as he turns away, probably to go upstairs and experiment some more, she fears that he might be right. What are they doing? What is she doing?

“Da!” Emily squeals, and Mary notes in her mind all the times that Sherlock has tried not to answer to it.

“No, no” she says nervously, “That’s Sherlock, he’s our dearest friend,”

***

Sherlock dreams of the tarmac sometimes. Dreams of John being swallowed up into the void and wakes up thrashing about. As if that would help. He looks around the empty room, John’s room, and wonders how many times John woke up here after the fall, alone just as Sherlock is.

But Sherlock is not alone, when he wakes up he sees Mary by the door.

“What are you doing up?” he asks.

“It’s a Wednesday,” she says simply, “Tarmac?”

He nods, “You’re very perceptive,”

She comes in inside and kisses him on the forehead, then leaves, “Go to sleep Sherlock,”

He does.

***

When Emily is a year old Sherlock takes his first case. It doesn’t feel right without John. Nothing does. But he’s just about investigated every kind of scientific phenomenon he’s interested in up in John’s bedroom. Memorized every volume of the Encyclopedia. Every pointless internet article. Then deleted. Stored. Deleted. He doesn’t know what taking a case will do to him. But he’s ran out of options.

He puts on the coat, and turns up the collar, then turns it back down. But Mary turns it back up.

“What are you doing?”

“John said it was your thing, and the scarf,” she hands it to him, “Wouldn’t be the same otherwise.”

“Well it’s not the same, obviously,” he says, “I’m going alone,”

“Don’t be daft, I’m coming,” she snaps.

He looks her over quickly and sees she’s taken the liberty of taking a gun, “Um…no”

“You’re not the only one that’s bored,” she says, “Mrs. Hudson’s babysitting Emily for the night,”

“Oh fine, I’m late anyway,” Sherlock sighs dramatically, but on some level he’s glad for her company.

***

 “Are you trying to blow your cover as an ex-assassin?” Sherlock laughs when they’re back at the flat, “No one could have made that shot, and then when you knocked him out, was that a form of jujitsu?”

“I’m a nurse with exotic hobbies,” she smirked, “Oh my god thank you Mrs. Hudson,” she takes Emily back in her arms.

“You just shot a guy, and now you’re singing nursery rhymes,” Sherlock remarks.

“You just solved a murder, watched me shoot a guy, and you’re going to be singing lullabies tonight,” she says smugly.

“What why?”

“Thursday,”

***

It’s weird for everyone at first. Everyone who’s used to John and Sherlock. Because John and Sherlock used to be Sherlock being rude and deducing everyone and everything and acting like everyone was incompetent. Then John being sarcastic, yet a good deal more polite and helping him to connect the dots and providing the medical knowledge when it was necessary. Plus the backup when the chases got ugly. It was a great arrangement. A great partnership.

But Mary and Sherlock is a great partnership too. Mary’s talents with finding the killer and Sherlock’s talents with determining the killer almost seem like a match made in heaven. He barely has to pause deductions to connect the dots when they’re speaking to each other. Mary can even finish some of his sentences. John’s wife is incredible, Sherlock finds himself thinking. Mary is incredible.

It becomes a weekly thing. Mary and Sherlock at the crime scene. Mary and Sherlock running down dark alleys. Mary and Sherlock at stakeouts. Mary and Sherlock grabbing a quick bite at Angelo’s, to regroup and talk leads. And this is when she feels it.

The guilt. She’s realized it now. She’s become the flatmate. She always thought John was so attracted to her because she was in a lot of ways similar to Sherlock. Brilliant. Mysterious past, though he didn’t know that, he probably always had that feeling. But maybe, maybe John was attracted to her because she was similar to John.

It shocks her slightly to think about it. They live together. They’ve been going on cases. And she’s, she’s enjoying it. Why am I enjoying this?

“What are we actually doing?” she asks Sherlock when they come home from a case.

“Well, we’ve just come back from New Scotland Yard, we’re probably going to tell Emily stories about John for a bit, and then go to sleep,” Sherlock answers.

“No, Sherlock, what are _we_ doing?” she asks earnestly.

“Ah, thought we might eventually have this discussion,”

“It’s been two years since he left, why haven’t we had it already?”

He snaps his fingers, “Because this is the turning point,”

“The turning point?” she asks, “What do you mean?”

“We have to decide whether this is what John would have wanted, then choose what we do next,”

“He wanted us to be happy, are you happy?”

“Yes,”

“Then I choose this,”

***

They don’t talk about it again until the night of Emily’s third birthday. All the guests have gone home. Sherlock’s holding Emily in his lap. She’s finally shaken off the habit of calling him ‘Daddy’ and has gone with ‘Sherlock’. It really shouldn’t. But the first one felt better.

“John should be here,” Sherlock says when she’s fallen asleep.

“I know, I know,” Mary sighs, “I wish. I wish he was.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock says, “For this. But I can understand now. She’s older now. You could manage. If you didn’t feel comfortable living here anymore.”

“What are you saying?”

“Mary it took her so long to accept that I was not in fact her father, don’t you think she might find our living arrangement the least bit confusing? Shouldn’t we do what’s best for her?”

“Why should it be confusing?” she demanded, “We both love her. We’re raising her together.”

“Yes, we love her. But we don’t love each other. That’s confusing.” Sherlock snaps.

“Well I love you, Sherlock,” Mary snaps back.

“You can’t,”

“Why not?”

“John,”

“John spent years not telling you the way he really felt about you, you think he’d want me to make the same mistake,” Mary sighs, “I know. I know why it’s wrong. It is. But _we’re_ right. I see the way you look at me.”

“I don’t want to take his place,” Sherlock insists.

“You won’t be. I never took your place. When I was with him. I still love him Sherlock. But I love you too. And you’re right. It’s too damn confusing,” she continued, “It’s just. I’ve lost everything. I can’t lose you too, Sherlock.”

“Okay,” Sherlock says, “Okay.”

***

Sherlock teaches Emily her dad’s name. He hands her the military medals. He lets her feel the dog tags. He reads from the blog. And he feels guilty. So, so guilty.

Mary takes Emily to pre-school. Explains at parent teacher conferences that Emily’s dad isn’t at home. That’s why her ‘family’ drawings consist of a ‘Mommy’ and a ‘Sherlock’. He isn’t dead, he didn’t leave them. No, really, she insists, he didn’t leave them. John would never leave them if he didn’t have to. But she can’t possibly say that. She goes home to Sherlock, and she tells him all of this.

“How will I tell her? He was a hero, and she’s going to think he just up and left,”

“I’ll tell her, when the time comes I’ll tell Emily,” Sherlock says, “She’ll remember John, Mary, I promise,”

Mary loves him, so, so much for this. For everything. So she kisses him. And she feels guilty. So, so guilty.


End file.
